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Tom
16th Nov 2004, 11:48 am
This was an important theme in the history of Modern Art but I have not seen the idea applied to websites often and do not recommend it. See Chinese Painting (http://www.northstar.k12.ak.us/schools/ryn/connections/1000-1200/chinese.html) - and try CTRL-A if you experience legibility problems.
David
16th Nov 2004, 01:51 pm
A quick look at the source code reveals the problem:

<BODY background="purple.gif" text="ffffff" link="33ff33" vlink="33ff33">

Obviously, the image purple.gif cannot be found and so the background defaults to white or whatever you have set in Windows. This is a very good lesson and illustrates why it's always a good idea to specify a background colour for a page even if you are using an image as a background.

Rule 2572: Always explicity set the page background colour even if it is white.


Why? Because the default colour for the browser page background is defined by the "window" colour set in your Windows theme. This may not always be white.
francis
16th Nov 2004, 03:39 pm
Additionally, this is a common way of trying to fool search engines into giving you a higher ranking. By 'hiding' text on a page (eg: ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine) by making it the same colour as the background you can theoretically get a higher ranking. Search engines are wise to this now and you will very likely find yourself removed from their database.
James
16th Nov 2004, 05:23 pm
"ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine ford engine" is quite simply key word spamming and would be rejected by search engines regardless of the colour. Doing white on white just hides it from the browser, not the search engine.